Elec. Eng. Prof Selected For Navy Optics Summer Program

SOCORRO, N.M. June 15, 2009 — Dr. Scott W. Teare, New Mexico Tech department chairman and professor of Electrical Engineering, has been selected by the Office of Naval Research as a Senior Summer Faculty Fellow for the 2009 American Society for Engineering Education Summer Faculty Research Program.

Teare, a faculty member at New Mexico Tech since 2000, is an active researcher in experimental adaptive optics, laser systems and optics. He will spend 10 weeks working with a team of Navy researchers to refine, develop and improve adaptive optics systems.

“We build, optimize, improve and develop adaptive optics systems,” he said. “It’s a way of looking at light to decide how it’s distorted or aberrrated. Then, we use another element to correct it. These are imagers that look through any turbulent medium – could be water or could be the atmosphere.”

Teare will be working with optics used in a variety of applications, including telescopes, laser communications and other imaging systems.

“It’s a neat opportunity for me and for New Mexico Tech to get the department’s name out there and to collaborate with other people,” he said.
Teare has authored or co-authored more than 100 technical and scientific papers and regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate classes at New Mexico Tech.

Sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, the summer research program provides funding for university and college faculty members to conduct research with scientists and engineers at U.S. Navy Research and Development Centers. Teare will perform research at the Naval Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque during the summer.